The Traveler Tales
by Graybiel
Summary: The Multiverse is an enormous place, full of unknown riches and wonders. Follow several wanderers as they travel the endless planes of possibility, while unraveling world-spanning conspiracies and dealing with shadows from their pasts. There will be war. There will be pain. There will be power. The possibilities are infinite!
1. Chapter 1

I've made a couple attempts at fanfiction, this one being my third (second on this site). I've always wanted to do one set in the Magic the Gathering Multiverse, and I'll to my best to depict the cards and worlds I love in a way that brings them to life. Give this chapter a read, and your response to it will decide whether or not I continue it.

Disclaimer: If I owned Magic the Gathering, would I be wasting my time writing fanfiction?

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Creftagg woke with a start. Century old branches creaked and groaned as he slowly rose to his impressive height. Muck poured from the many knots and notches in his bulbous gut of a trunk as he pulled himself from his murky pool at the edge of the swamp. He grumbled to himself as he tried to dislodge his foot from some unseen hole under more than a meter of mud and gunk. The Poplar shaman who had lived across the mire often laughed at his habit of sleeping submerged in water, at least until the local boggarts tried to set the shaman on fire. One final tug with each of his three arms and his foot came free with a tremendous pop. Unfortunately for the elderly ash, the force required to pull the limb free proved to be more than enough to send him falling falling in the opposite directions. He landed in the muck with an enormous splash that sent dozens of frogs flying into the air, much to the amusement to a clique of passing faeries. Grumbling and cursing anew, he pulled himself from the water a second time and stretched out his aching limbs. Finally standing on two feet, Creftagg extended his senses, trying to discover what awoke him from his slumber.

The weather was fair and the sun sat pleasantly on the edge of the horizon. The boggarts that had entrenched themselves in the shallower portions of the swamp seemed unusually riled, but then again, the unusual texture of a bug in ones nose could excite a boggart with little difficulty. Creftagg's ancient brow creased as he reached out his senses once again. The last time something awoke him from so thick a sleep, a giant lumbering through the swamp had kicked his submerged form, so whatever had awoken him from his slumber this time must have some significance. Suddenly something stood out like a changeling in a crowd. There was something in the boggarts warren that was certainly not one of the smelly little cretins. Boggarts are foul little beasts ranging from a meter to two, covered with all manner of sores and warts and boils. They are shrewd and cruel and get an enormous kick out of causing suffering to pretty much everything, including their own warren-mates. To his sensing abilities they felt like little blobs of harsh smells and bad intentions, but something in their warren felt like nothing he had ever felt before. Before he could jump to any conclusions, his senses finally reached exactly what had awoken him. A Dread was on the horizon.

The lands of Lorwyn were home to a vast number of abstract Elementals. Odd mixtures of animals, elements and spirits, Elementals are capable of acts of great and terrible power. Some are benevolent beings that commit acts of random kindness, and others are malevolent creatures that cause pain and woe to all who come across them. Any encounter with an Elemental was bound to leave a lasting impression, and, unfortunately, Dreads were of the latter kind. Its head was shaped like the entirety of a beetle with six long spindly legs. It's lower jaw, however, appeared like that of a snakes, and the head itself was suspended in the air by the neck of an enormous snake. Though the foremost legs protruding from the head ended in insectoid spurs, the other four instead ended in enormous centipede-like insects. The serpent neck was in turn connected to a gargantuan two pronged stinger, but instead of stingers at the end their were thin wire-like cords which then connected to two enormous bee abdomens which seemingly floated in the air. The creature was black splashed with many streaks of sickly green, and was in and of itself gigantic. More importantly, It was charging at full speed in the direction of the boggart warren, and whatever it contained. Creftagg stood and easy ten meters, but even he could not stand up to such a creature alone. Dreads were, in fact, dread incarnate, and were as indestructible as the feeling itself. It could slay treefolk with some effort, so Creftagg had little chance should he try to stop the thing.

Wait, stop the thing? Why on earth would he even approach the thing? It was about to destroy a boggart warren, and the boggarts had been nothing but pests since they migrated to this swamp. The smart thing would be to walk away and let the Dread do as it pleased. Creftagg had no duty to protect anyone from anything.

And yet... there was the thing in the warren, something Creftagg had never encountered before, that kept him rooted in place. Creftagg had lived a very long life, and over the course of his life had walked much of the lands of Lorwyn, from the Murmuring Bosk of his birth to the Gilt-Leaf Palace where the elves conducted their rituals, and he had never- never- felt anything like what lurked in the warren. Knowing his curiosity would gnaw on his bark for decades if he didn't learn what was causing this feeling, Creftagg charged at top speed towards the little hovel. Well, charged as fast as a several century old tree could charge through a feet sucking, root grabbing fen, which was to say, not fast at all. Lucky the Dread was still far of in the distance, because the going was very, very, slow.

After an hour of getting his feet stuck, and more than his fair share of falls, the aging ash finally arrived at the warren of the boggarts. The little gremlins were running about in a frenzy, dashing from mud hut to mud hut, grabbing anything and everything from their makeshift little homes and running from the village, with no particular pattern or organization. The decrepit boggart Auntie, the cretin's mockery of a proper shaman, barked orders at the only warren-mates either brave enough or stupid enough to linger. As far as Creftagg could tell, she was commanding them to retrieve all of the trinkets from her hut, the largest, and most likely the one with the most destructive and foul-smelling items the boggarts had collected. Knowing the Dread was almost at the edge of the swamp, Creftagg reached out his sense, and tried to find whatever it was that had drawn both him, and the Dread, to so obscure a place. As luck would have it, Creftagg sensed it just as one of the last boggarts came running out of the Aunties hut, the object in question on its back. It was a creature, one that Creftagg, (and everyone in Lorywn, for that matter) had never encountered before.

Before Creftagg could begin analyzing whatever it was the boggart was carrying, he was met by a thunderous roar as the Dread splashed into the murky water of the swamp. Knowing he had very little time, Creftagg reached down and snatched away the boggart's cargo and placed the creature among the branches protruding from his back. What boggarts remained dropped everything they had and ran as the Dread closed in on the warren.

"I had hoped to avoid this." thought Creftagg. Knowing he could never outrun the Dread, the treefolk looked deep within himself. He thought of all the lands he'd been to, all the places he's seen, all the homes he'd lived in. The Murmuring Bosk . The Gilt-leaf Palace. The forests. The swamps. He remembered the beauty of the land, and the power it held. He reached for the power buried deep within his wooden frame. He seized it.

Mana, raw and powerful, flooded through his ancient form. Black and bubbling, it erupted from his core like hot water from a geyser. It was very powerful, but very very dangerous. Using the mana that now coursed through his trunk, Creftagg began chanting an incantation.

"What is drowned is not forgotten. I will fulfill my oath. Come back to me, my brethren, as I have come back for you!" The incantation was completed instants before before the Dread could reach him. As the Dread attempted to lunge for him, rotting wooden limbs reached up from deep under the muck and pulled the Dread away from him. The forms of two waterlogged warrior treefolk emerged from the murky water. The monstrous form of the Dread, which stood at an easy 12 meters, was forcefully yanked towards the ground by the soaking wet warriors. Sure, Creftagg couldn't beat the Dread alone, but with the help of some waterlogged companions, the task was no where near insurmountable. This was the reason that Creftagg made this swamp his home. Hidden below the water were the forms of dozens of treefolk who had gone to their not-so-final rest. Creftagg's shamanistic magic was able to animate the forms of the fallen warriors with the strength of his own spirit, though he could not maintain them for long and they possessed little memories of their former lives. They could still pack a punch, though.

The treefolk combatants were locked in epic struggle with the fiendish Element. Its mandibles sank deep into one of the rotting trunks, but the reanimated warrior felt no pain. Its centipede-like appendages wrapped around their forms, and their softened bodies gave easily before its strength, tearing through branches and limbs. Realizing his companions would not last long, Creftagg entered the fray himself. Taking full advantage of his multiple limbs, the treefolk raked his sharpest branches across the Dreads carapace. Its hide began to split between his sharper talons. The creature roared in pain and brought its gigantic stingers into play. Each stabbed its way through one of the two summons with ease, their broken forms sinking into the murk. Realizing the Elemental was ready to finish him, Creftagg called upon his mana again, and cast a different kind of spell entirely.

Just as the snake-like jaw of the Dread closed itself over Creftagg's head, vines and marsh weeds began to entangle the raging spirit. In rapid succession, they went from a few, to a dozen, to a hundred! Creftagg had imbued the vines with greed and malice, and in their overwhelming emotion, the vegetation began to strangle and consume the mammoth of an Elemental. In a matter of moments, the weeds had destroyed the powerful being. Bright green blood oozed from between the vines, but Creftagg wasn't foolish enough to believe it was truly dead. Even as he thought it, the "corpse" the vines were clutching vanished, and the bright green blood dissipated as well! Dreads are as immortal as the emotion they are named after. You can kill its physical form, but its only a matter of time before it reforms somewhere else.

Letting the mana he had collected pour out of his aching trunk, Creftagg began heading to the opposite side of the swamp from where he had awoken. Somewhere in the woods about the swamp was the Poplar shaman he would request to heal his wounds, for the various lashing appendages of the Dread had snapped a few branches and chipped away some bark. It took the elderly treefolk a few moments to remember there was a passenger amongst his back branches. Realizing it would be dangerous to leave the odd little creature so close to the site of a battle, Creftagg desired to carry the little thing to the shaman, who might be able to help him identify the unique looking little small-folk. A destination in mind, and bark and branches in need of healing, Creftagg speed in full earnest towards the edge of the swamp. As tired as he was from the battle with the Dread, he just might make it to the shaman before the end of the year.

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Alright then, There was the first chapter. I would really appreciate it of you guys would post some reviews so I get an idea of how I did. I appreciate constructive criticism, but hopefully you won't flame to much.

Dear God describing Lorwyn elementals are annoying as hell! I will post a link on my profile for all the cards included in the chapter, but let me know if you'd like just the links, or a description like I've done here.

Not going to spoil too much, but the person Creftagg found is in fact a planeswalker. It is in fact an OC, and a number of OC's will appear throughout the fic.

One last thing, I love suggestions! Feel free to suggest cards, planes, or characters you want to make appearances, and what you guys suggest will in fact effect the plot. So yeah, leave me a review, because the number of reviews I get determines if and how quickly I update.

Adios!

Graybiel


	2. Chapter 2

Hey guys! Here goes chapter 2 of The Traveler Tales! Let me know what u think!

Disclaimer: I don't not don't own nothing... I think...

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Addan Vext, the dead beat son of a cobbler, was currently browsing the wears of a stand in a crowded market street several miles away from Ravnica's Rubblebelt. The loxodon vender watched him like a hawk as he carefully examined a jeweled pendant. Well, he _appeared _to be examining the pendant. A well trained eye might have noticed that Addan's attention was actually focused on the crowded street behind him, if a trained eye would have thought to closely watch a harmless, guildless, nobody. Ravnica was the City of Guilds, an endless urban sprawl which was, miraculously, controlled by ten powerful guilds. Addan had lived his life thus far without ever joining a guild, a major disadvantage to someone living in said city, but today it was this fact that would make everything possible. To keep up his appearance, he placed the pendant down and began 'examining' a far less valuable bobble, much to the pachyderm stand owner's relief. Intently focused on the shifting crowd behind him, full of elves and vedalken and ogres and goblins and centaurs, Addan was immediately aware when his target entered his vision.

Behind him, walking through the crowd, was Kendl Shiq, renowned investigator for the Boros Legion, and the reason Addan was here. Addan paid for the bobble, and quickly entered the crowd directly in front of the investigator. Feinting forgetting something, Addan halted and allowed the investigator to walk directly into him.

"I am so sorry, honorable sir! I should have paid attention to where I was going!" As he begged the man for forgiveness, Addan placed his hands on the taller man's shoulders. The Boros punched him in the gut and continued on his way, and as Addan writhed on the ground in pain, he grinned inwardly at the easy success. The moment his hands touched the man, Addan absorbed a plethora of information that would be critical for his true mission to be just as successful.

Kendl Shiq was currently the lead investigator in the murder of a high rank Azorius law mage, and it was in the interest of Addan's employers that Shiq be taken of the case. Using the knowledge acquired during his brush with the Boros, Addan slipped into one of the thousands of alleyways that wound through the endless city. Using the secret passages that few save his employers knew of, Addan crossed mile long stretches of city in less than an hour. He emerged from an alleyway in a quarter full of bland and simple apartments, and descended down a manhole that would take him to the sewers. The tunnel had a low ceiling, and smelled heavily of mold and death, but he had been in far more disgusting environments. Addan navigated the tunnels as if he had been born in them, and, after a time, closely examined the ceiling directly above him. He carefully felt the mold that covered the ancient stone until he found a patch of mold that felt strangely smooth. Taking out a small monocle, Addan looked through the lens and saw what was hidden under the simple illusion.

Carved into the stone was the symbol of his employers, the rough silhouette of a six-legged beetle with an eye on its back, the symbol of the House Dimir. Addan summoned mana from the Undercity far bellow the streets, and from the lakes and oceans covered by the expanding city, and channeled it into the tiny symbol. With a click, a small opening was unveiled in the tunnel wall. Just before the guildless man could enter the revealed passage, a drunken goblin stumbled around the corner. The inebriated gremlin blinked stupidly and Addan and the passage he was about to enter. Before the goblin had a chance to utter a word, Addan's hand was over its mouth, and a knife stuck into its heart. Before the body could hit the floor, Addan absorbed the body into himself. The goblins dull and uninteresting life briefly flashed before his eyes as Addan purged the alcohol from his system though the skin of his palms and let it trickle onto the floor.

Now that the coast was clear, and he made _sure_ the coast was clear, Addan entered the secret passage and entered the building above. As soon as he scrambled through the hole, the opening closed itself behind him. Now inside one of the apartment buildings he had seen from the street, Addan walked up the stairs and straight toward the apartment of one Dornad Glorffeire. He had stolen the location of the man's home from the mind of the investigator, and unlocking the door of the dwelling was easier then child's play. The apartment was tiny and humble, without even a kitchen, and just a bedroom and bathroom. The fact the man actually owned an apartment said something, because most members of the Boros Legion lived in one of their barracks'. Dornald Glorffeire was the night watchman for the nearby Boros armory, and was given this dangerous position due to his outstanding combat prowess.

Unfortunately for him, he was an extremely heavy sleeper, and, since he was the night watch, he was dead asleep now, even though it was near eleven o'clock in the morning. Addan stuck his knife into the man's throat, and absorbed him into his form.

Then Addan ceased to be Addan and then he became Dornald.

Now in a quarter strictly controlled by the Boros Legion, Dornald walked the dark streets of Ravnica to start his shift at the armory. It was ten o'clock at night, and the last shift started twelve hours ago, so it was little surprise to him that the current guard was fast asleep, leaning against his spear at the armory's door. Luckily these streets were closely monitored by the Legion, so anyone who could have caused the man harm would have had a hard time getting this far. Well... almost anyone.

Dornald woke the man with a friendly punch in the face. "Wake up, soldier! What do you think you are doing, sleeping on the job? Get your crap together, or I'll report you to the watch captain!"

"Sir, yes sir!" the soldier replied, from his place on the grown. As he scrambled to his feet, he said,  
"It won't happen again, I swear in the name of Razia!"

Dornald gave a threatening growl. "Get out of my sight! And if I catch you asleep at your post again, I'l personally see you expelled from the Legion!". The man nodded quickly while rubbing his jaw, and, after a quick salute, ran towards the nearby barracks in embarrassment.

Dornald had to resist the urge to stab himself in the face. He couldn't stand the demeanor of the militant Legion's speech. He'd rather have to eat his own hands then live in a place where need need to talk like that constantly. He stood vigilant at his post for well over an hour, until the streets began to clear, and he was free to do as he pleased. Calling on some blue mana, Dornald cast an illusion to make it appear as if he hadn't moved, and then opened the armory door and examined the contents within. For the most part, the armory was full with standard equipment. There were dozens and dozens of racks of sets of standard soldiers armor, and their must have been hundreds of swords, spears and shields lining the armory walls, but none of these things held Dornald's attention for long. Calling on the memories of both Shiq and his current form, he maneuvered through the various racks until he reached a series of locked vaults at the very back of the building. He walked straight to Shiq's vault, and entered the combination. It took more then just the combo, though, so he used a special key of which the true Dornald owned a copy. The vault slowly creaked open, and within the darkness shined the gleam of well treated metal. Dornald quickly sorted through the contents, and made off with a precious dagger, that belonged to investigator Shiq's grandfather. Now the final stage of his mission could be completed.

Then Dornald ceased to be Dornald and then he became Kendl Shiq.

After expelling the corpse of Dornald from his body, Kendl channeled black mana from the sewers to alter the cause of death. It would now appear as if the guard had died of a heart attack at his post, and since only his finger prints would turn up in and around the armory, it was unlikely that the theft would ever be discovered. After using the alleyways to travel through the city, Kendl arrived at the edge of the Rubblebelt. The Rubblebelt was a stretch of miles and miles of ruined city. It was the home of the Gruul Clans, a loosely organized guild of savages and brutes. With the sun beginning to rise and touch the tops of the collasping towers, Kendl proceeded to enter the territory of the hard headed barbarians.

Nearly three hours later, Kendl arrived at the edge of a Gruul village, more or less worse for wear after dealing with the enormous, hungry beasts the Gruul cultivate in the Rubblebelt. After several long days of careful planing and execution, Kendl would complete his mission, and pick up his pay roll. The House Dimir knew just what he was capable of, and even the guild of shadows wouldn't dare double cross him.

Taking out the dagger he had stolen from the vault, Kendl, in full Boros atire, and with all of the grace and poise of a vedalken dancer, charged blindly into the village screaming at the top of his lungs. Shouting all the many slurs that could be applied to the Gruul simpletons, Kendl ran circles around the village, smashing trophies, breaking banners, and slaughtering clansmen left and right. He made sure to focus on killing the wounded or elderly, in order to incite the rage he desired. The village was obviously not a warrior one, as none of the villagers had attacked him yet, but neither had they run, for a cowardly Gruul was a dead one. Making sure to be seen by as many villagers as possible, Kendl attacked the village shaman as he emerged from his tent. The ancient centaur looked like he was older than the city itself, and the villagers forgot their caution and charged at Kendl to try and stop him. Once he was sure that there was the maximum amount of witnesses, Kendl dispatched the beloved shaman, and left the family dagger in its chest.

The village was in an uproar, every member screaming and shouting. Humans, minotaurs, goblins, centaurs, all the different races who inhabited the village feverishly searched for the Boros fiend who had killed the honorable Shaman Kud. In the chaos after the attack, none of them noticed an extra goblin that none of them would have recognized, and even if they did, they wouldn't have cared.

The goblin quickly left the Rubblebelt and entered the city proper. After finding an entrance to the sewers, the goblin raced through the endless tunnels, until he was so far from the Rubblebelt, no one would have guessed he came form there. Here, he returned once again to the form of Addan, and he let out a long, _long _hearty laugh.

Gruul brutes may be idiots, but they can recognize a face. With such a beloved shaman dead, with a unique knife in his chest, even the Azorius Senate's expert lawmages would have difficulty proving Kendl Shiq's innocence. The villagers would rally the Gruul's warriors, and they would charge through the streets in a raging stampede until they found investigator Shiq and tore his body to pieces. Not only did this take him of the law mage's murder, but it increased the hate and tension between the Gruul Clans and Boros Legion,which is exactly what the House Dimir wanted.

Now that his job was complete, Addan gathered manner into his form, and did something nearly no one in all of Ravnica could do. He walked away from Ravnica, away from the not just the city, but from the _plane of existence! _He entered the Multiverse proper, and left Ravnica _entirely._

Addan was a Planeswalker.

Well... he would have been, if he was Addan Vext.

But Addan Vext died _several days ago_.

The Walker laughed and laughed as he entered Blind Eternities, and went where no one could follow him.

Well... _almost _no one.

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Ta da! God, this guy is fun to write. I updated fairly quickly and the chapter is roughly the same length, I believe, but don't expect updates to come this quickly all the time. My last quarter of senior year is about to begin, so I'll be kinda busy.

I'm currently trying to decide how many main characters this story will focus on, the number currently being either 3 or 4. We'll be returning to Lorwyn soon, depending on how many characters I want to introduce in the upcoming chapters. Please review and let me know what you guys think.

I hope I portrayed Ravnica with the glory it deserves.

Oh, and thank you B.D. Skunkworks for your review, and the answer may not be as simple as it seems :) :) :)

Don't forget, the more you guys review, the faster I'm likely to update.

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Keep calm guys, the new chapter will be coming soon!

Special thanks to Starfish912 for pointing out some minor spelling and grammar errors, which I just fixed.

I'm a little busy with school work right now, but expect the next chapter to come out Sunday afternoon.

Adios!


	3. Chapter 3

Next chapter is up! Read and enjoy!

Disclaimer: If I owned Magic the Gathering, they would be starting on a movie by now.

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He felt the earth between his toes. It was soft. It was cool. It was fertile, and full of life. It was the land his people had protected for as long as anyone could remembered, for as long as anyone had ever known. It was land his people would defend to the end. he giggled as he sunk his hands into the soil as far as he could. He could feel the tiny subterranean organisms moving around his fingers, testing him, feeling that he meant them no harm. He could feel the rich, powerful mana running through the earth. Grandfather said the mana was so strong here because of their people's love and care, and that made him smile. He tugged his hands from the soil, and rubbed off the excess dirt on his simple leather breechcloth, his only clothes, and looked at the sky with a grin. The clouds filled the heavens with their glory, and the sun burned with a gentle, pleasant warmth. After pausing to enjoy the view, he ran through the sprawling fields towards the Hilltop.

The Hilltop was the tallest hill in their land, standing bare in the middle of a range of wooded hills that seemed to go on and on till the horizon, at least to him. Grandfather told him their land was in truth, small, and that there were nations a hundred times bigger, but he doubted that. Grandfather was always saying crazy things. He had even said that there was little mana anywhere else in the world, but how could that be? Mana was everywhere, at least, everywhere he had ever been. It took a few minutes for him to scale the steep slope to the top of the hill, stubbornly refusing to go to the other side, where the path was. Once he had clambered his way to the crest of the hill, his eyes were greeted by the Tower. It was a simple thing, three logs, graciously requested from the land, bound with rope so they stood tall, with a platform placed atop. He raced up the ladder, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the ancestral spirits. The moment he reached the platform, he whipped his head around, but no spirits revealed themselves to him. He was disappointed, though not greatly, to see nothing but the same hills and woods he had grown up with. After a quick shrug, he lifted his chin to feel the wind against his neck, and the incredible bliss it caused. It was Grandfather that had taught him to do that.

Kein opened his eyes to be greeted with a very different landscape then the one he had just beheld. Gone was the beautiful land of his birth, gone were the fields, and the hills, and the trees. Gone was the wind, and the clouds, and the tower on which he had stood. Gone was his wonderful, painful, childhood vision, and what took its place was a harsh landscape and a beating sun.

Kein stood from his meditative pose, his knees popping from lack of movement. He stood atop a bluff in a maze of deserts and mesas in one of Zendikar's harshest regions. An enormous hedron stone floated several miles up, and had, until just now, blocked the sun, reminding him of the immaculate breeze of the plane of his birth, which was hardly a blip on the radar of the average planeswalker, due to it being almost completely devoid of mana. Zendikar, meanwhile, was known for its especially potent, primal, powerful, (not to mention volatile) mana, and was a popular stomping ground for planeswalkers like him. Which was exactly why he was here.

An old ally of his in Ravnica was dead, and he knew a planeswalker was responsible. He was in the Rubblebelt when a supposed Boros investigator butchered the peoples of a small village in cold blood. Human's and their ilk killed each other off all the time, and if it was merely the villagers that had died, Kein wouldn't have cared in the slightest, but the assailant had also killed an elderly centaur shaman named Holdkvan. Holdkvan a close friend and defender of what wilderness survived in the City of Guilds, and who happened to be one of the few creatures on Ravnica who was aware of his ability to walk the planes. And he was dead because of someone with just such an ability.

Kein was, in blood, human, but he abandoned all ties with his race. They were arrogant, stupid, ignorant things. In some, ignorance could be excused, but humans were blatantly aware of the pain they caused to the other races, and to the land itself, but as long as it wasn't happening right in front of their faces, they were perfectly fine with living their happy little lives, with their mahogany furniture, and their fur coats, and their fancy gold and jewels, knowing that animals were butchered, forests destroyed, mountains uprooted, and peoples _destroyed_ for their unnecessary luxuries.

Kein knew there were humans with character, like his Grandfather, and his people, but his people lived in harmony with the land, and on all the worlds he had visited, there were little to no like-minded humans to be found. Sure, he found the occasional exceptions, extremists like the Gruul clans, but they were very, _very, _few, and extremely far between. He had yet to find humans who worked with the land and _weren't _simplistic brutes. His kind were apparently the last, and they now walked with Old Holdkvan, sleeping in the earth. Still... still Kein hoped that he might find someone who had even a passing similarity to his own people.

"My head seems to be stuck in the past today" Kein muttered to himself. He had a job to do and he was daydreaming about days long gone. Kein knew Holdkvan was murdered by a planeswalker, because when Kein spoke to the land around the village, the presence of a planeswalker was abundantly clear. Mystics and wizards on pretty much any plane are capable of harnessing mana from the land and use it to power their spells and enchantments, but planeswalkers, being able to travel from world to world, left a kind of footprint on the lands they walked, for the land was always shocked at the presence of mana from another world, and they readily spoke of it to someone with the ability to listen. And the Rubblebelt had a clear trail leading quite a ways into the city.

Kein cared nothing for the politics of Ravnica, but a planeswalker had killed his friend, and he had a definite bone to pick. The walker was obviously arrogant, probably a new walker, unaware of others like him, because his trail through the Blind Eternities was straighter than an arrows shaft. That trail had led him to Zendikar. It was here he would find the walker, and kill him.

Fully synced with the arid mesa upon which he stood, Kein sought for a planeswalkers footsteps. And found dozens and dozens of them. Perhaps this walker knew something after all. Kein knew Zendikar was popular, but he had never been to the plane for any length of time, certainly not for the purpose of tracking a fellow walker. Luckily, it was not something he was new at. He had once tracked a human walker for a leonin named Ajani, a powerful mystic and healer, but he had left once he found the walker, as Kein couldn't stand being around the other human for any length of time. Hopefully his experience with tracking would be enough to find the elusive murderer.

Before Kein would track down the murderer, he needed to find his contact on Zendikar to try and find if this murderer had an established home on this world. Kein had had a home once, but he promised himself long ago that he would never call another place home for as long as he lived, like many planeswalkers, but most planeswalkers, Kein included, had outposts scattered across several planes which they used as shelters and storehouses. It was near Kein's Zendikan outpost that his contact will be found.

Kein channeled the mana from Zendikar's soaring seacliffs, half way across the planes, and used it to cast an enchantment on the sky above him. The air around him quickly became turbulent, and a massive amount of dust and debris from the scorched land about him became suddenly airborne, gathering in the sky overhead. The whipping wind and dust congealed under the scorching sun, and what first appeared as nothing more than a dust devil suddenly gained startlingly familiar features. Instead of the wind funnel one would expect, the dirty cloud unveiled a set on enormous arms and a roughly shaped head as the zendikon was born. Kein worried slightly at using the arid mesa to form an elemental from mana from the ocean, but the elemental seemed sturdy enough, and when he requested that it take him to his desired location, the embodiment of the land he had awakened was more than happy to oblige him.

The wind zendikon reached down its large, near incorporeal, arms and seized Kein in a rough embrace. It was far from gentle, but Kein had experienced much worse from far less friendly creatures, so he had no reason whatsoever to complain. The elemental had no obligation to obey him, as he had requested, not demanded, that he would take him to his hideaway on the plane. Those who thought themselves superior to others and worthy to dominate others were an enemy of Kein's, and he would not hesitate to humble such creatures.

Firmly stored within the zendikon's body, Kein didn't fear falling for an instant as the elemental began to soar through the sky faster then an arrow in flight. The pressurized air of which the zendikon was composed ensured that Kein could breath perfectly, and the density of its cobbled dust skin protected him even as the zendikon flew through the sky as such incredible velocities. The elemental was so thick that Kein could not see through it, and was unable to see the landscape over which they soared, but he was more than capable of sensing the mana that the land below produced. In this way he could tell that the landscape over which they flew rapidly changed from dessert to swamp to forest to lakes and back again. In this manor Kein could travel from one end of the continent to the other, and he could feel the presence of his destination rapidly growing closer.

The air within the zendikon was rapidly growing warmer, and Kein could feel the sweat building on his forehead just as he sensed the the range of mountains and volcanoes below them, and the raging, burning mana which they produced. Kein stretched his limbs, readying himself for what would be required. Pushing his way through the elemental's dense form, Kein forced his head out from the zendikon's forehead, and observed the Valakut mountains below.

The Valakut was a range of particularly feisty volcanoes with a habit of ferociously charring any treasure hunting expeditions that dared the searing peaks. Hidden within the burning peaks was Kein's concealed sanctuary on the plane of Zendikar, but Kein would not be stopping at said outpost today. Instead, he communed with the elemental he was mostly submerged in, and explained exactly what it was he wished to attempt.

His plan was a bold one, one that would cost the zendikon all of the dust that gave it solid from, but seeing as it was the wind that held the dust together that contained the zendikon's spirit, it was more than willing to sacrifice its solidity for the walker who had awoken it. The zendikon's form shifted from the upper body of a humanoid to a compact ball of dust compacted by the pressure the wind exerted. Kein used said dust to form an extremely durable, oval shaped shell capable of both containing and protecting his flesh.

Just before Kein charged the shell with mana in order to carry out his scheme, he felt an enormous spike in the land below him. He opened a hole in the dust shell so that he could observe the landscape, and what he saw filled him with awe and wonder. The Roil, a powerful flood of mana that resulted from Zendikar's volatile nature, had struck one of the volcanic peaks of Valakut just as said peak was erupting. The resulting flux of mana created a swirling vortex of fire, rock, and mana, and from the chaos, something beautiful was born. The obsidian that filled the air suddenly consolidated in the center of the chaos, but instead of collecting into a ball, it began to form the ridge of a spine. From that spine, a torso began to form. From that torso, leg burst from the sides, and a vast amount of obsidian clumped together to create an enormous, menacing head. These parts all joined together as the mana and fire was sucked into the core of its earthen form.

Its eyes opened. Its legs shifted. Mana and flame pulsed from its form like the beat of an animals heart. It lifted its head, opened its gargantuan maw, and roared with the sound of a titanic eruption.

Thus a new, incredible, and powerful element was born.

Kein could hardly believe what it was he had just witnessed. He had become acquainted with a vast number of titanic and godlike elementals, but all those he had met were as old as time itself, and Kein hadn't in his wildest dreams thought he would see the creation of so magnificent an entity. A chuckle began to bubble up from the center of Kein's chest, which turned to a laugh, which turned to an uproar. The mana below searing through his veins, Kein laughed and bellowed to the heavens! Gesturing with his hands, Kein tugged at the earth below, even as the element bellow raised its head again and roared. Lava burst from the blasted peak from which the new element was born, and just as it reached the crest of its ascension and began to fall back towards the earth, Kein sealed off his dusty shell, and fired it into the lava like a ball from a cannon.

The zendikon now solely formed from wind lightly shook its "head" at he rashness of its summoner's plan.

Kein's bullet joined with the lava as it crashed back into the cauldron of the ruined volcano, hot, but protected by the densely packed cocoon of earth. The falling lava helped increase his velocity, and instead of slamming into the bottom of the volcanic cauldron, Kein entered the network of lava tubes that stretched below the Valakut mountain range. Now things became much trickier. Kein had to use his sensing abilities to their fullest extent to guide his way through the vast labyrinth of volcanic tubes. First a left, then a right, then another left, then an up and a down and a center, Kein wove his way through the smoldering maze. Kein could feel his pod beginning to break, and he was met with great relief when he sensed his target ahead.

This time, he did slam into a wall, a rather thin one, which he managed to break through. Kein forced his shell and the lava that coated it away from his form in a blast of burning mana. Calling on said mana again, Kein hardened the lava slowly pouring from the hole he created, effectively sealing off the lava from the system of cavern's he had just entered.

The air in these caverns thrummed with incredible power, and one could practically taste the mana wafting up from the chambers below this one. Kein followed this trail of mana until he finally reached the chamber of Kein's most reliable ally in all of Zendikar. Omnath.

The being who stood before him was almost beyond words of description. It was an entity composed of the rich, ancient mana from Zendikar's massive, dangerous forests. It was colossal, incredibly powerful, and knew anything there was to know that took place on Zendikar near a source of green mana. Kein keeled before the near godlike entity, waiting for Omnath to make the first contact.

Omnath spoke to him in no tongue of mortals, but in thoughts and feelings directly from its vast collection of experiences. Omnath answered Kein's question before it had even collected in Kein's thoughts. The murderer was no longer on Zendikar.

Rage erupted from Kein's core as his physical body burst into flames which burned him not, but charred the earth on which he stood. Omnath could locate any planeswalker on the plane with little difficulty, sensing the foreign mana they contained, and he had felt the murderer's signature land on the plane, and almost immediately depart. Kein allowed the fire to die down, and attempted to regain his peace of mind. His quarry was aware he was being perused, it seems, or the walker is unbelievably paranoid, which, in this case, was saving his life. Knowing his trail through the Blind Eternities would have already started to deteriorate, Kein had absolutely no time to lose. He thanked Omnath for the help he had provided, and made his way off the plane.

The hunt was on.

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Alright guys, what do you think? This one is a little longer than the chapters that preceded it, and it's likely that the chapters will grow longer and longer as the story progresses.

If you don't mind, please review, because reviews are what gives me the inspiration to keep writing. Let me know what you guys think.

Adios

Graybiel


	4. Chapter 4

Here goes yet another chapter. This one should be delightful

Disclaimer: Yo soy de clase baja mexicana americana, quiere usted que poseer algo?

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The air was full of the aroma of warm, good food, be it it farmed, gathered, hunted, or stolen. Bonfires were lit, and the sounds of singing and merriment flowed throughout the glove. Maidens and warriors danced to their hearts content, tribal markings discarded in the celebratory reunion. Children ran about, shrieking and cheering as they chased each other through the legs of the feast-goers and in and out of the tents and shacks scattered about. Elders told stories to eager listeners, sharing the wisdom they had collected over many years of trickery and tomfoolery. Members of each warren shared sensations with their distant kin, be it the texture of an otter pelt, or the confounding construction of some pilfered kithkin wobblethingy. Funnyfeel-making mushrooms were passed all around, along with sloshing mugs of ale and beer freshly plundered from recent raiding. It was when the Smelliest Wort competition began that the party really started to pick up.

The Feast of Footbottom is an extremely important celebration to the lopsided goblins of Lorwyn, for it is a time when the boggarts from warrens near and far gather to feast and party and prank and tell stories and share sensations and show off to each other, all of these being the most funnest things that the boggarts simple yet mischievous minds could comprehend and enjoy. Well, most of them, anyway.

A hush fell over the feast-goers as relatively smallish boggart matron climbed to the top of an enormous pile of rubbish and smellies and weirdtastes and brokenthingies, which formed a makeshift stage for boggarts of position and power to speak to the congregation. Not that any of the boggarts knew what the word 'congregation' meant, but they understand the concept well enough...ish. The elderly matron was none other than the beloved Auntie Thumb, head shaman of the Thumb Warren, the host of the annual Feast of Footbottom. It was her presence which brought about such a sudden silence from the bumbling babbling party-goers, for any boggart worth their gut knows that Auntie wisdom was some of the best their was, and could be effectively used to cause a maximum amount of chaos to their victims.

Auntie Thumb grinned, revealing a mouth full, not of teeth, but of bits of glass and pebbles and even the beak of a small bird that the Auntie had used to replace her never so pearly whites. After an abnormally long and loud flatulence for a creature her size, which caused the closest members of the crowd to pass out with watery eyes and lightly bleeding nostrils, the fabled matron spoke.

With a croaking voice that sounded like a frog boiling alive, she said, "When one eats much much red-on-greenythingies and faerie feets and extra sticky swampslop, one's butt burps get real real strong and very very good for kithkin raiding and elf scaring." The mass of goblins cheered at the revelation of a new form of mischief making, and even those who had only just returned to the land of the living cheered and being the first to experience such a recently discovered sensation. The mob was about to restart the merriment and song singing when the decrepit shaman raised her gnarled claws and sent a small ball of burning tar skyward. Ignoring the scream of the boggart unfortunate enough to get struck by the descending tar, Auntie Thumb raised her voice once more. "Today we has much special special guest with us. He is old friend of mine from far far far away, where no boggart ever has gone before. Not seen him in fingers and toes years to this feast, have I. That's right, seven and twenty years! He tells me that whoever gots the stuff to win this year's Footbottom challenges will have the honor of feeling his far far far away sensations!" The Auntie then gestured to the empty air next to her, "I present to you, Old Blurp!"

At this point a goblin rocketed from somewhere behind the makeshift stage and landed exactly where the Auntie had gestured. If the previous applause is considered a cheer, this one is a thunderous roar. The boggarts young and old marveled at the appearance of the newcomer, and those who knew a thing or three about magic realized that he hadn't used any to get on the stage, meaning had actually _jumped_ up four meters and forward two to land so close to the front of the stage, not an easy feet if he was as old as Auntie Thumb insinuated. Again, not that the boggarts even had a word for 'insinuated', nor any word beyond an eight year old human child.

Any further words that the Auntie said were lost as the celebration started to get even more out of hand, not exactly an easy feat. Every boggart at the party, be they five years old or fifty, wanted to experience the sensations of the strange, far far far away boggart, because even the thickest of boggarts could see he looked nothing like any of the other party-goers. While most boggarts were covered with warts and lumps and moles, Old Blurp's skin was oddly smooth. While most boggarts' feet were individual and unique collections of lopsided toes and claws, Old Blurp's were fairly regular, all facing forward, and all relatively the same. While most boggarts' mouths were full of broken, rotten teeth, Old Blurp's was full of healthy, unbroken, needle-like incisors. A boggart so unique-looking he looked like no other boggart any other boggart had ever seen must have seen things so unique-looking that no other boggart must have seen them! Just the idea drove the boggarts into a frenzy, and there was little doubt in the minds of any of the boggarts that there would be an ridiculous share of foul play in the coming contests.

What hadn't crossed the minds of any of the boggarts, however, was that Old Blurp was not a boggart at all. The term 'boggart' is used solely for the goblins native to Lorwyn, which Old Blurp is not. His name isn't even Blurp, though he is, in fact, very _very _old. To those he trusts, no one, his name is Azven, and he has walked the planes of the Multiverse for over three centuries, using his special brand of magic to sustain him.

Azven could barely contain his laughter as he watched the next contest from a special seat of honor in which only elders were permitted to sit. This is his rightful place, seeing as no boggart was even close to his age, nor his power, for that matter. The overweight warrior who won the Smelliest Wort contest sat directly in front of 'Old Blurp' so that he might use him as a footstool as he observed the Frogtossing Competition, a sensation no living boggart had yet experienced. Naturally, a brute from the Frogtosser Warren was currently leading the match, with twelve frogs currently in his bucket-target. His lead was quickly stolen, however, when the frog he had just unleashed exploded on contact with the bucket, erasing his possibility of victory, as it was very clearly stated in the rules that destruction of one's bucket resulted in disqualifications. The fire-juggler from the Mudbutton Warren to the Frogtosser's immediate left attempted to whistle casually, seeing as he was now in the lead with eight frogs-in-the-bucket, but the Frogtosser caught on and tackled the cheating worm, attempting to bite his ear clean off.

Now Azven roared with laughter, as nearly every single contestant joined the growing brawl. Dust and frogs began to fly everywhere and fingers were shoved up noses, and toes were shoved into ears, and noses and ears where shoved in places they would normally avoid at all times, if one could help it. Despite the hilarity of the brawl, many of the onlooking boggarts wailed in despair as their warrenmates abandoned their frogs in favor of beating their opponents into submission. In the course of the brawl, all of the frogs the challengers had for throwing managed to escape with their lives, if not entirely in one piece. At this, the Mudbuttons in the audience let out a cheer, realizing that victory was now theirs. Well, it would have been, if the angry Froggtosser hadn't lifted up their challenger and thrown him into his bucket, smashing it, and letting its contents escape. At this point, even members of the audience were rushing in to join the brawl, their respective Aunties either encouraging their antics or desperately trying to get them under control.

Azven allowed himself another chuckle, as the brawl in front of him continued in a storm of kicking, screaming, swearing, spitting, and biting. The gremlin planeswalker couldn't keep his thoughts from drifting to a similar brawl, for much different reason, on a much different plane, a very long time ago. Azven was born 362 years ago on the plane of Jund, a land of erupting volcanoes, savage jungles, and consuming tar pits. On Jund, it was eat or be eaten. Even the plants of the plane ate flesh, let alone the brutish humans, the hungry viashino, the predatory oozes, and the territorial dragons that ruled the plane. Goblins were present on Jund, of course, predatory goblins, with sharp teeth, claws on their hands and feet, and an extra bend in the leg, making them capable of scaling a rock face, jumping from tree to tree and wading through lowland swamps. On Jund, goblins were the bottom of the food chain, and foolishly worshiped the dragons who consumed them. As a youth, Azven believed in his peoples suicidal religion, and was even selected to ascend to the sacred cliff where he would become a meal for their living gods. A dragon dived from the clouds, maw open and ready to consume Azven in a single gulp. It was at this point, an instant before certain death, that Azven decided he wanted to live. In that split second, Azven's spark ignited, and he found himself in the Blind Eternities.

Azven had visited Lorwyn three times before this, and once the feast concluded he would likely not return for quite some time. Azven had spent enough time investigating Lorwyn that he knew of the Aurora and what it would bring. That was why he decided to attend one last Feast of Footbottom before the change occurred because any planeswalker who stayed during the Aurora was doomed to lose their Spark. Azven, knowing this, carefully planed his stay on the plane so that he would have plenty of time to leave before the Aurora, for it wouldn't arrive for at least a week, giving him time to establish mana bonds on the plane and find some boggarts fit to be in his service.

The planeswalker broke through his musings when he heard a particular whine. There are dozens of subspecies of goblins populating hundreds of worlds in the Multiverse, but by some miracle of the Blind Eternities, some of the nonverbal signals of goblins cross from plane to plane. The particular whine he was hearing was also heard by the mass of warring boggarts, and every single one of them stopped their struggle and cocked their ears, attempting to locate the source of the sound. It's exact meaning was lost to Azven, since nonverbal signals still differed somewhat, but he could easily tell that it represented an urgent need.

He managed to locate the source a few instants before the boggart horde, so Azven dashed towards the northwest edge of the camp. He was greeted by approximately two dozen boggarts, carrying on their persons all manner of trickets, tools, and weapons, far more than is advisable to travel with. Bringing up the rear was an unusually large boggart upon which sat an elderly female Auntie. A crowd began to gather around the group of burdened gremlins, and the aging Auntie Thumb pushed her way to the edge of said crowd.

"You alls are late!" she barked at the recent arrivals, "you already missed the Smelliest Wort competition, and the fight resulting from the Frogtossing Competition. What you gots to say for yourselfs?"

"We found something!" One of the boggarts replied, "something super super amazing weird we haven't ever seen before!"

This statement caught Azven's attention. A few boggarts from the festival seemed to have caught something, because a few of the elders were glancing in Azven's direction and muttering, but Azven chose to ignore them. Instead he focused intently on what the newcomers were saying. Apparently there was a bright flash of light in the middle of their warren, and a strange paw appeared in the air very briefly. When the light faded there was a weird thingy lying on its back where the flash had originated. They neither smelled, heard nor saw its approach, so the warren's Auntie assumed it had arrived by magical means, and had the thingy taken to her hut. Less than an hour later, they spotted a Dread on the horizon, and were forced to abandon their warren or allow themselves to be crushed to death by the raging elemental. Luckily, they had already packed much of their things for the travel to the Feast of Footbottom, so they hadn't lost everything when the elemental arrived, but they had lost the single most important thing they had, the unidentified thingy. Apparently a treefolk who lived at the edge of the swamp had snatched the thingy when they were making their final escape.

Auntie Thumb scolded them for losing something that had so many potential sensations, but left the the exhausted fools with little more than a slap on the wrist. The sun was slowly nearing the horizon, and there were still several more days of contest and merrymaking before the warrens would disperse once more. Following the Auntie's advice, the vast majority of the boggarts refueled the fires to last till sunrise and returned to their various tents and huts, save for a few who either had reasons to stay awake or merely wanted to explore the surrounding Porringer Valley. Azven was a member of the latter group.

The elderly goblin decided to take a small trek through the surrounding woods in order to decide upon a course of action. Having had some experience with the denizens of the plane, the planeswalker ensured to place a barrier around his thoughts, knowing the deceptively cunning and conniving faeries would likely try to enter his head. The troublesome pests followed him like moths to a lantern, for their queen, the godlike Oona, feeds upon the dreamstuffs in peoples head, and dreamstuffs from foreign planes are worth infinitely more that the dreamstuffs of the planes limited denizens. Azven had twice been forced to battle the armies of Oona, during his first two visits to the plane. The selfish Queen of the Fae sought to capture him like a bird in a cage, so that she might continually feed on his foreign thoughts. The first time he had to slay hundreds of faeries to escape her grasp, for she required a certain number to continually sustain her with dreamstuff. The second time, Azven threatened to reveal the location of her mythical home in Glen Elendra to the elves, who would likely attempt to 'purge' the Fae as if they were a wasp nest. Unfortunately, Azven was no longer capable of carrying out such a threat, since Oona could, with great effort, move the location of the secret grove, and had likely done so between his second visit and his current one. Still, Oona had obviously learned not to tamper with Azven's affairs, because this was his second visit in which he met little or no of the Queen's forces. But it was no quarrel with Oona that had Azven worried this evening.

Azven was worried at the appearance of another planeswalker on the plane of Lorwyn. It had started as a suspicion, but after hearing the new arrivals account, he was absolutely certain that the creature that appeared in their warren must have been a planeswalker. Lorwyn was a world full of bizarre and seldom seen creatures, and what had appeared could easily have been one of them, if it wasn't for the symbol that had appeared in the air as the creature landed in the center of the warren. The ignorant boggarts had described it as a paw print, but what they had actually seen was a symbol known only by a select few. Those select few are the planeswalkers of the Multiverse, and any beings that had unraveled the secret of the Multiverse, that theirs was not the only world. The symbol was a single downward line which spreads and breaks apart in to five different lines pointing heavenward. The symbol was one of the undiscovered secrets of the Multiverse, because it unconsciously appeared whenever a planeswalker left or entered a plane, and as far as Azven knew, there was no way to stop it from occurring. Considering how warped the paws of boggarts were, its not all that surprising that they confused the symbol for a paw print. Still, the arrival of a new planeswalker could only lead to one thing.

The plane would soon be consumed by war. Lorwyn was a world of knowledge. The kithkin held on to their ancient superstitions, the treefolk and giant sages had memories that spanned millennium, the short-lived elves kept records of every non-elf they've hunted, the flamekin monks recorded any supernatural phenomenon they encountered, the merrows observed and recorded anything potentially profitable that passed them buy, the boggarts kept verbal records of any rare sensation, and the Fae stole knowledge from all of the above. It was obvious from the boggarts' account that the planeswalker was not of a race native to the plane, which meant that each of the mentioned races would likely attempt to learn all they could about the strange creature that has appeared in their midst. Bloodshed was on the horizon. And that meant Azven would be leaving much faster than he had originally intended.

The unknown planeswalker could belong to any of the races of the Multiverse not native to Lorwyn, but Azven would bet money that the planeswalker was likely human. Humans appeared on more planes than any other race Azven had encountered, and nearly every other planeswalker he had the, ah, _pleasure, _to meet had been human, so I was beyond likely that the new walker belonged to said race. It was also very likely that this walker had only just taken its first step into the Blind Eternities, especially because it was unconscious when the boggarts found it. Planeswalking took an enormous amount of focus and effort in order to be successful. Azven needed to be focused and in good health to even hope to achieve a proper walk. The sole exception to this was when he had planeswalked for the very first time. He had been so shocked and disoriented upon entering the Blind Eternities, it was a near miracle that he managed to land on a passing plane rather then just float through the Eternities until he died. Even planeswalkers cannot survive the Eternities for more than a couple hours. Regardless, the evidence as it presented itself to him showed that there was a fledgeling human planeswalker currently in the possession of the treefolk, and the peoples of Lorwyn would likely go to war over possession of said human. And Azven wanted nothing to do with it.

The races of Lorwyn were more tightly knitted to their kin than most races on other planes. When the tribes of Lorwyn went to war, it could very easily turn into a war between races, and the last thing Azven wanted was to get caught up in a war alongside his boggart cousins. Sure, he helped goblins across the planes when he found it convenient, but he had come to Lorwyn for some fun, not to fight a war. Azven promised himself, as soon as the festivities died down the following day, he would kiss Lorwyn goodbye and wish his cousins luck in the coming conflict. Conflict would have found its way to his kin regardless as to weather or not a random walker appeared, seeing as the Aurora was quickly approaching, and Azven wasn't planning on getting involved in that conflict either. Good riddance to Lorwyn, and good riddance to the unlucky walker who would lose his spark as soon as the Aurora arrived.

For a extremely brief second, in a part of his brain Azven wouldn't mind to slice out, he remembered the planeswalker who aided him after his first walk, and of how old troll had taught him about the planes and the Spark, but Azven pushed said thought out of his head the second he became aware of it. The old troll was a friend to goblins, while most of the humans Azven had encountered either abused, manipulate, enslaved, or butchered his people. Sure, Azven had manipulated his less intelligent kin on numerous occasions, and sure, his magic was a peculiar kind which required the lives of his brethren to cast, but Azven used his brethren in order to promote the prosperity of his people, and he was beyond certain that his vict... ah... companions would have been happy to die for such a cause.

Getting back on track, Azven solidified his decision. He would not help, or even attempt to help, the newly fledged planeswalker bumbling around Lorwyn. He would in no way participate in the conflict creeping closer by the hour, and he would most definitely _not _stay on the plane for even a second should the conflict begin sooner than expected. The moment there was a sign of trouble, Azven would deal with the problem posthaste, then hightail it out of there, and off the plane.

His mind made up, the elderly goblin began a brisk pace back towards the festival grounds, hoping to catch a few hours of sleep before Lorwyn's never fully setting sun began to rise from its place on the horizon once more.

Azven woke bright and not quite early, fresh, energized, and ready for one more day of festivities and mischief making before he said adios to his lopsided kindred. The Distance Mucus Launch was an overwhelming success. Azven actually decided to participate in this event, and, using only a small amount of magic, cheated his way to victory. Needless to say, the crowd at the other end of the spitting range was quite surprised when his phlegm completely overshot the range and struck an especially unlucky boggart in the chest. Said boggart was then launched back a few meters, so perhaps Azven had used to much magic after all, but none of the Auntie judges thought anything of the unusual power of Azven's spit, possibly because they assumed he was skilled at such things due to his advanced age. Despite his less than honorable sportsmanship, Azven made off with a jar of changeling goop, highly valued by boggarts for its ability to make different shapes, and thus, different sensations.

The next contest was the highly competitive, long awaited Nostril Capacity Challenge, which Azven respectively decided to decline. He had to admit, however, that the goblins native to Lorwyn had an incredible ability to fit an enormous quantity of incests into their noses, possibly because they could go much farther back into the skull, seeing as they lacked a brain of any substantial size. The winner managed to fit as many as 32 different bugs into his nostril's at a time, which Azven could hardly have imagined was possible. Since a promise is a promise, as long as it didn't cost him overly much, so Azven presented him with a small hedron chip from Zendikar, and dubbed it a more-than-special rock. The Nostril Champion was overjoyed, and to express his gratitude, the mud colored boggart immediately shoved the more-than-special rock, you guessed it, in his nose.

The crowd erupted in cheer once again, and the festivities continued with that unique brand of lunacy that can only be achieved by a mass of less than intelligent pranksters. Only now, the boggarts decided to begin the Feast part of the Feast of Footbottom. The Squeaking Pie Warren brought their namesake squeaking pies, full of live hedgehogs and mice and the occasional faerie. The Mudbuttons brought a dozen roasted goats, seared to perfection completely accidentally with an ill performed fire spell. The various warrens all presented their own contributions to the feast, but it wasn't until the Thumb Warren revealed their dish that the crowd got _really_ excited. The Thumb Warren hosts presented several baskets full of greenstuffs they themselves had farmed, the same stuff that had produced such devastating flatulence the previous day, which Azven recognized as cabbage. True, cabbage wasn't meant to be sticky, or furry, for that matter, but the fact that any boggarts could understand the concept of farming greatly impressed Azven. He couldn't remember having seen a single instance of goblin farm work in all of the planes he had visited, which only added onto his appreciation for is Lorwyn kindred. To bad they wouldn't be themselves after the Aurora hit.

The party was a blast! Boggarts stood in clusters about the camp, building bonfires, and feasting at the hastily set tables. The majority were talking and chattering, and a few more lyrical boggarts were giving it a shot at singing, not very successfully, but it was effort that counted. As Azven was helping himself to a fat, squirming, squeaking pie, he noticed Auntie Thumb wandering about the camp, seemingly looking for something, but Azven was more than certain she didn't need his help. All was well! Then, a boggart died.

Azven dropped his pie as he abruptly jumped to his feet, his eyes scanning the distance for any potential threat. All the goblins around him hadn't noticed it, though if he told them, their respect for him would have made them believe. Had they known exactly how he knew, their respect would likely increase, but so would their fear. Where as most practitioners of magic merely required mana in order to cast their spells, Azven's spells required a little extra kick. Azven took the lives of nearby goblins to cast spells far more potent than those that used only mana. Even Auntie Thumb knew not about Azven's magic of choice, mostly because he was capable of casting spells without lives of his brethren. Only his more powerful spells, or simple ones he wished to enhance, required goblin lives. A living being holds a lot of power within, Azven just tapped into the power the goblins held. Regardless of the ethics involved in using his kin as power cells, it gave Azven the ability to acutely sense goblins, and the energy that escaped when they died. Now it was a question of weather or not the goblin died in an accident, or if foul play was involved. Just as the thought entered his head, a dozen boggarts died as flaming arrows shot from the trees and hit their targets right in the head.

Boggarts everywhere shrieked in terror, and those unfortunate enough to be within ten feet of the original targets were showered in boiling boggart blood and burning boggart flesh, as the flaming arrowheads exploded on impact. This, in turn, ignited a fire that quickly spread from tent to hovel, shack to lean-to, turning the once peaceful grove into a hellish scene that oddly reminded Azven of the plane of his birth. The arrows had been thoroughly soaked in poison, as the smoldering shafts gave off stinging clouds of oily black smoke that cause even more boggarts to drop dead.

Dozens of elves charged into the festival ground from the trees to the south. Erie in appearance and demeanor, with hooves for feet, horns protruding from their heads, they charged the party-goers in silent, perfectly choreographed combat maneuvers.

But Azven was ready for them.

Using the deaths of his kin murdered by elvish arrows to fuel his spell, Azven paused a moment to feel the power and mana thrumming about his ribcage like burning liquid rage, before he unleashed it in a devastating counterattack.

Channeling the anger of his distant home plane, Azven thrust his hands skyward to show the pampered denizens of Lorwyn what _real _rough weather is like. Suddenly, volcanic fallout from a volcanic range a Multiverse away rained from the heavens, and bombarded the elvish lines. The perfection obsessed fascists screamed as molten earth burned them as they suffocated from lack of clean air.

Azven's efforts allowed his kin some time to rally a defense, and by the time the energy fueling Azven's spell was spent, the boggarts were now ready to defend themselves. Boggarts charged at the elves shattered lines, and, for an instant, Azven thought the battle was over. He was proved wrong, however, when the distant voice of some elvish commander shouted, "Hemlock, Nightshade, and Deathcap! Strike now, hunters of the Gilt Leaf! _Strike!_" and another wave of elves charged toward the combatants already locked in combat.

**WARNINGWARNINGWARNINGWARNING WARNINGWARNINGWARNINGWARNING WARNING**

(The following scene does contain a bit of brutal violence, but I am uncertain as to weather its worth it to change the rating to M. Let me know what you guys think, because if it seems a bit much, I will gladly change the fic's rating to fit the level of violence.)

The battle was brutal. Boggarts young and old chopped at the coming elves with whatever was handy, and those without weapons used their claws and teeth as best they could. The elves, however, were trained warrior and hunters of the elven nation, and even though the boggarts numbers were greater, the incredible skill of their elven opponents caused it to be much closer to a massacre than a battle, and unless something happened, the boggarts were doomed to fail.

Azven did everything he could to help turn the tide of battle, but his choice of spells was severely limited by how tight the combat was. If he were to use any of his more destructive spells, he would likely kill more boggarts than elves. Instead, he contributed by empowering his brethren with spells to increase there prowess. Boggarts locked in battle suddenly realized that the enemies blows seemed to hurt far less, and that their own blows seemed to be causing massive amounts of trauma to those they struck. With the aid of Azven's spells, powered by the deaths of many a boggart, the battle suddenly seemed far less lopsided, when something happened that surprised Azven.

Suddenly the battle was beginning to lean in the opposite direction. Where there were once disciplined elvish ranks pushing back the goblin horde, the combat had degenerated into a chaotic free-for-all. A change was occurring amongst the boggarts, a change that Azven was not responsible for. Instead of the mischievous little gremlins Azven had come to visit, the boggarts had morphed into frenzied, feral marauders. The boggarts had all dramatically increased in size, and equally so I savagery. They no longer used the weapons available to them, but instead ripped and tore at the elves with their own claws and teeth. Before Azven's very eyes, a trio of boggarts had thrown an elf to the ground, one proceeding to rip the horns from the living elf's skull, one proceeding to bite the fingers from the elf's hand, and one decided to rip one of the elf's legs clean off. This and numerous acts of horrifying savagery were being committed across the battlefield, as the boggarts became the ones bringing about a massacre.

It took Azven a few moments to realize what was going on. He had not realized that the transformations would begin before the Aurora occurred, but it was possible the stress from the elvish assault had caused the boggarts to transform prematurely. Not keen on waiting around a moment longer than necessary, especially since the elves seemed to be regaining some control of the battle, Azven gathered what focus he could, and walked into the Blind Eternities.

What he found there shocked him.

The Blind Eternities were beyond the scope of most intelligent creatures understanding, appearing, at least to Azven, as an all consuming blackness filled with spinning little pieces of broken glass, which were the planes. The problem was that nothing in the Blind Eternities was solid. Instead of solid objects, the planes were represented by random bits of color, sound, smells, and, occasionally, tastes. The entire experience reminded Azven of a time he ate a bad mushroom, and he always sought to leave the Eternities as soon as he possibly could.

He was just about to walk toward a plane less wrecked by war, when a enormous claw came out of the dark, and sliced into the flesh of his right arm. Azven tried to scream, but in the Eternities, sound behaves strangely, and his voice sounded twisted, and demonic. As far as he knew, one couldn't make contact with anything withing the Blind Eternities, but whatever had a grip on his arm was clearly an exception to the norm. Expanding his senses as much as he could, Azven became aware of an enormous presence that surrounded the plane of Lorwyn, cutting it off from the rest of the Multiverse. It could not be physically seen, save for the claw which came in contact with the elderly goblin, which could have been visible simply because he was in contact with him.

He had to scratch that theory when several more dark claws materialized in the space before him, each of them seeking his flesh. It was at this point he realized that the claw that already gripped him was draining the magic from his form, pulling the energy from him like pulling teeth from one's gums.

The feeling was excruciating, and if Azven was forced to endure any more, his mind was likely to be lost to the pain. Realizing he had only one shot at escaping, Azven dug his needle sharp teeth into the dark claw that clutched him. The claw released him, and just as the other appendages arrive to seize him, Azven kicked of the monstrous thing and sent himself falling back toward the plane, where the claws sought not to pursue him.

Things just became a hellofalot more complicated.

**WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWWW**

Well, this chapter was an absolute joy to write.

There you have it, the four main characters have now been revealed, and now the story's plot can actually begin. This chapter was quite a bit longer than the once that preceded it, and that is because the earlier chapters were meant to introduce the main characters. I hope that the chapters to come will be at least as long as this one here, and, if possible, longer. Let me guys know what you think, and I'll see ya all around.

For those that need clarification, the main characters will be:

The planeswalker recovered by Crefftag

Our shady shapeshifter friend

Kein the elementalist

And Azven the elderly goblin

I cant wait to see the conflicts that will erupt between these guys :)

Adios!

Graybiel


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